> https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land...
how did you get 80% and 18% numbers from that link?..
also, calories is not the only metric of nutrition load..
https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-g...
from
https://ourworldindata.org/land-use
> also, calories is not the only metric of nutrition load
True. Nutrition is more than just calories. Plant-based diets offer diverse nutrients, antioxidants, and fiber that promote better health.
Ok, but still that pic lacks sources
Actual UN FAO says it is 33% of croplands used for crops production for animals, and other land is not necessary can be used for other type of aggrecalture: https://www.fao.org/3/ar591e/ar591e.pdf
UC Davis estimates that cattle farming consumes only 40% of arable land: https://clear.ucdavis.edu/explainers/cattle-and-land-use-dif...
> Nutrition is more than just calories. Plant-based diets offer diverse nutrients, antioxidants, and fiber that promote better health.
I am more wondering about protein intake
This seems like this could have the sources (cannot open it right now).
https://github.com/owid/notebooks/tree/main/HannahRitchie/da...
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
Why does the land have to be used at all?
> I am more wondering about protein intake
Seitan, tofu, TVP are the obvious high-protein plant foods. People without a taste for those things or uninterested in leaving their comfort zone can seek mock meats.
Either way, it's trivial to hit protein goals.
and why not be used?
> protein
yes, but the topic of discussion what is the share of those nutrition in consumption for plant vs animal today and not hypothetical case when everyone switch to plant based diet.
Also, it is not clear if whole chain of seitan production is much better than animal protein in term of efficiency.
Seitan is just wheat gluten. You can take wheat flour off your shelf right now and wash out the starch so just the spongy gluten is left which is pure protein. And that's just one protein-concentrated food.
I think you need to look these numbers up for yourself because it doesn't seem like you have a grip on how inefficient meat is, and I think you need to see the numbers for yourself to believe it.
yeah, I looked, internet search says that seitan costs $15/lb in walmart, which is way more expensive than some chicken tighs, and I use this comparison as benchmark for efficiency and economical viability.
Your hand-wavings and personal attacks are ignored.
Why would you look at that and not just at the cost of wheat flour? Wheat gluten is dirt cheap to extract from wheat. Once again, you can make it in your home at the cost of wheat flour.
Another example is soy beans where the majority of soy is fed to animals instead of consumed directly as products like tofu, TVP, and soy chunks.
As for "hand waving", I suppose I can google meat inefficiencies for you. First google result: https://www.wri.org/insights/sustainable-diets-what-you-need... -- You'll notice that wheat is the most efficient source of protein especially when considering GHG emissions.
wheat flour has much smaller protein content than proper cuts of meat, so you just shift all this processing from industrial complex to your body with side effect of calories over consumption, blood sugar spikes etc.
> soy beans
uncooked soy beans also costs like 3-4$/lb in walmart, while having lower quality protein than meat.
> majority of soy is fed to animals
you can think that animal are doing your industrial processing: extracting proteins from raw soy/grains and converting it to well preservable and digestible form.
Remember, it takes 25 calories of cow food (like wheat or soy) to grow one calorie of meat.
You can eat those calories (wheat or soy) directly at 25x more efficiency, and that's just calorie efficiency without looking at water or land use efficiency.
Finally, price doesn't tell you how much it costs to make something nor the financial viability at scale. Just like the price of beef doesn't show you subsidies, the price impact of basic demand, nor externalities.
In a hypothetical world where we switch 100% beef consumption to wheat gluten and tofu, why would it be more costly when we aren't losing 24 calories for every 25 calories we feed to cows anymore?
Even when you wash the starch from wheat flour to isolate wheat gluten, the starch is used as inputs into other foods. When we talk about the energy lost through tropic levels, it's lost as unrecoverable metabolic energy.
which has cost which we discussed already.
Also gluten protein is far less digestible than animal protein, Table 1 in this publication says it is less digestible by factor 4: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6723444/#:~:tex....
> even beef
beef is by no mean the best way to grow animal protein. Turkeys and chicken will be much more cost efficient.
> Remember, it takes 25 calories of cow food (like wheat or soy) to grow one calorie of meat.
I answered you already that calories intake is by no mean the important metric of nutrition value, and not interested to jump into this discussion again.